


Butterfly Kiss

by china_shop



Category: White Collar
Genre: F/M, Fic, M/M, Multi, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-29
Updated: 2010-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-11 07:39:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/china_shop/pseuds/china_shop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A different future isn't necessarily a worse one. –Neal Caffrey</p>
            </blockquote>





	Butterfly Kiss

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to mergatrude for first-reading and encouragement, and to bethbethbeth for beta. &lt;3
> 
> Set during the pilot.

**Prologue**

The dial gave a soft click, only audible because pretty much everyone was holding their breath.

"Drop four," said Mackiewicz.

"All pins down, preparing to open," reported Reuben.

Peter tried to contain his triumph; they'd been this close to the Dutchman before without success. What were the chances they'd actually get him this time?

Mackiewicz grasped the handle, and—

"Three two four," murmured Peter. That combination— He frowned. "Three two four. _Wait!_" He stepped forward just as the safe opened, and was caught in the blast. Smoke enveloped him, seemed to billow _through_ him, and his body turned to static.

 

 

**Part 1**

**1.**

He woke to the regular beep of a heart monitor. His head ached. He was warm and horizontal, his body heavy, but his stomach hurt, there was a bitter taste in his mouth and when he swallowed, his throat was raw. There were distant footsteps and bustling sounds and the faint smell of disinfectant, and under the coarse sheets, his feet were bare; he opened his eyes, squinting against the overhead light, and yeah. A hospital. Big surprise.

His vision wouldn't clear. He could see, but not with the clarity he was used to. Well enough to recognize El in the chair by the bed, though. "Hey," he said weakly.

"Peter!" She dropped her magazine at once and moved to the side of his bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I've been through a meat grinder and swallowed a razor blade." He tried to rub his face, but there was a cannula on the back of his hand, and the IV line feeding into it restricted his movement. "What happened?"

"I don't know—you're supposed to be in Missouri." She gave him a careful, reassuring smile. "Diana's trying to get in touch with the St. Louis office."

Peter barely heard her. "El, are you okay? You look—" Different. Not bad, not by any means, but her face was subtly more lined, and her short hair made her look older. "Haircut?"

Before she could answer, a man came in with two cups of coffee. "This was the best I could find, but I can—" He broke off when he saw El was by the bed, put the styrofoam cups on a trolley and came over to stand next to her. "You're awake. I thought we had a deal, Peter."

He had dark hair, blue eyes, a frown. He sounded pissed. Peter was still groggy enough that it took a few seconds to place him. "Neal Caffrey?" What the hell was Neal Caffrey doing in his hospital room, scolding him like that? "You're supposed to be in prison. El, call Diana."

Caffrey's frown deepened. He wasn't even trying to charm his way out of getting caught. "Peter? Is he all right? He looks different."

"No one said anything about a head injury." El was frowning too. "Honey, what's the last thing you remember?"

"We opened the Dutchman's safe, and there was an explosion," said Peter, not taking his eyes off Caffrey. "Where's my phone?"

"The Dutchman was five years ago. He must have amnesia." Caffrey moved around El so he was right by the head of the bed. He reached out and ran confident fingers over Peter's scalp, presumably searching for damage. "I can't find anything. What year is it?"

"It's two thousand and nine, and you're supposed to be in prison," said Peter, first trying to bat his hands away and then catching his wrist. "El, my cuffs should be in my pants pocket."

"Peter, it's a misunderstanding. You're not arresting Neal," said El firmly. She took Caffrey's arm and pulled him away. "And you're not helping. You're freaking him out."

"I'm not—" Caffrey took a deep, unsteady breath. "Right." He pressed a call button on the wall.

El closed her eyes for a second, obviously pulling herself together. "The doctor's on her way," she told Peter, squeezing his hand. "Try to relax. And don't worry about Neal—he's not going anywhere."

She took Caffrey into the corner of the room and they had a rapid exchange too quiet for Peter to hear. Then Caffrey put his arms around El and hugged her, and there was something off about that hug, something too familiar. It wasn't just a stranger offering comfort. Peter reared up and tried to get out of bed, aches and wooziness and IV be damned. "El, what are you—? Caffrey, get your goddamned hands off my wife!"

They sprang apart. El looked shocked but Caffrey—Caffrey looked confused and annoyed and lost, all mixed up together. "Peter, I know you don't remember, but we—"

"You what, exactly?"

El was trying to push Peter back down on the bed, but he stood up in his hospital gown and glowered at Caffrey. Prison hadn't been kind to him: he still had his movie star looks, but he seemed ten years older than when Peter had arrested him, even had a few speckles of gray hair at his temples.

Peter looked at El, really looked at her this time, and then stopped resisting. He sat back on the bed and let her swing his legs up and cover him with the blanket. "Amnesia?"

She pressed her hand to his cheek. "Honey, it's twenty-fourteen."

She delved into her bag and pulled out a phone, not one he recognized, and showed him the display: _02:39PM January 14, 2014 Location: New York Presbyterian Hospital, New York._

Peter swallowed, winced at the taste in his mouth and groped for the plastic cup on the cabinet beside the bed. El filled it with water, and he took a drink and tried to take everything in.

"I can't remember anything." He glanced across to where Caffrey was standing in the corner by the window, arms folded. "And you—?" He didn't know how to finish the question: Caffrey had been released from prison four years ago and what? Made friends with Elizabeth? With both of them? Peter could still feel the confident sweep of Caffrey's fingertips across his head, checking for injuries. "We're—what? Help me out here."

El and Caffrey exchanged glances, and El opened her mouth to speak, but then the doctor came in with a clipboard, flanked by two men in dark suits, obviously government, obviously not FBI. Probably Pentagon or Secret Service. Muscle, but not stupid. Behind them, Diana was hovering in the doorway.

"Peter Martin Burke?" asked the doctor.

Peter nodded. "Apparently I have amnesia."

It sounded ridiculous. Who got amnesia outside of the movies? But the doctor didn't so much as smile. "I'm afraid it's more serious than that," she said. "But there's nothing to worry about. We're going to move you to level nine." She turned to El and Caffrey. "It's restricted access, but we'll take excellent care of him."

"What do you mean, restricted access?" said El. "Is he contagious? Because if not, I don't see how you can justify keeping us away from him."

Diana pushed her way past the government agents. "Restricted under the Trans-Chron code, article one eighty-five, clause f," she said. "Come with me, both of you, and I'll explain."

"The hell you will," said Peter. "Stay here and explain to all of us, because I'm dying to hear this."

But no one paid him any attention. One of the agents clipped the IV stand to the corner of the bed, and they took the brake off—Peter hadn't noticed the bed was on wheels—and started maneuvering him toward the door. From their expressions, Peter was pretty sure that if he resisted, they'd sedate him, either chemically or physically, so he ignored them in favor of the exchange going on by the window.

"I thought TCT had been mothballed," Caffrey was saying.

"It has. We don't know how this happened," said Diana. "We'll find out, but right now, you don't have clearance to even be in the same room with him." She sounded apologetic. Was Caffrey best friends with _everyone_ in 2014?

"So, wait," said El, sounding confused. "That means Peter's still in Missouri? Because even if that's true, you can't keep us away from him. That him. He needs us." She cast an angry glance at the government agents, and Diana moved, carefully casual, to block her way.

Caffrey put his arm across El's shoulder, which Peter guessed was partly to restrain her. "El, sweetheart, this is one of those situations where Mozzie's most paranoid theories actually apply."

Which might as well have been in code, for all Peter knew, except for one thing: Neal Caffrey had just called Elizabeth 'sweetheart'. Peter closed his eyes and breathed as evenly as he could, hoping like hell that Diana would find a way to access level nine and explain what was going on.

The hallway started to blur, and Peter felt sick and woozy, his eyelids falling shut despite himself. Dammit. They must have spiked his IV after all.

 

**2\. **

The second time Peter woke up, it was nighttime. Dim wall lighting gave the room a ghostly feel. There was no heart monitor, but there was a new bag of dark liquid on his IV—not red enough to be blood—and his door had an electronic lock with a keypad. He couldn't tell if he was still in the hospital or if he'd been moved to a different facility. He sat up, waited for the blood rush to pass, perched on the side of the bed and started rifling through the bedside cabinet to see if there was a phone, any kind of communication device, _anything_, but he was interrupted when the door opened and two doctors came in.

Wait. Scratch that. Not doctors—Caffrey and a short, bald guy, both wearing lab coats and glasses. And they looked more like lab techs than doctors. Caffrey pulled a chair up to the bed, but the short guy stayed by the door on lookout, pointing a small parabolic microphone at the interior wall.

Peter eyed him warily. "Who's he?"

"A friend," said Caffrey.

"Whose friend?"

The short guy looked over his shoulder. "I'm a TCT specialist. If anyone comes in, you don't know me."

"I _don't_ know you," said Peter, exasperation rising in his chest.

"Exactly," said the short guy.

Peter rolled his eyes. "Caffrey—"

Caffrey leaned forward in his seat and looked at Peter intensely. "Call me Neal."

"I—"

"Please."

It seemed important to him, so Peter nodded. "Can you get me out of here?"

Caffrey and the short guy exchanged glances. "That's probably not a great idea," said Caffrey.

"You're dangerously low in a whole bunch of trace elements right now," the short guy chimed in. "Iron, potassium, zinc, chromium, selenium. That's what the IV's for. Mark Mackiewicz is out cold in the next room—I guess he got hit even harder."

Mackiewicz had been in front of him during the explosion. Peter tried to stay calm. "So tell me this: what's trans-chron? And if you don't tell me, or if you say time travel, I'm hitting the alarm button right now."

There wasn't actually an alarm button, and Peter didn't want to attract any attention until he knew what he was dealing with, but he could bluff as well as the next guy even if the next guy was Neal Caffrey.

"Peter," said Caffrey, holding up his hands, palm out.

Peter kept his voice low and determined. "Neal, I need to see my wife."

"I know," he said, "but I couldn't—We had to rappel down the elevator shaft to get here, and you know what she's like with heights."

"She's not the only one," said the short guy, "but no one cares about _my_ vertigo, do they?"

"Wait, you _broke in_?" Peter rubbed his face with his non-IV hand. He'd assumed they'd talked their way in, at most.

Caffrey looked stern. "We had a deal. You broke it."

"Technically, he didn't break it," said the short guy, with all the weariness of someone repeating themselves for the hundredth time. "You should really be mad at Curtis Hagen."

"Stay out of it, Moz," said Caffrey, without looking around.

Peter studied him. "What deal?"

"You don't get hurt; I don't break the law." Caffrey leaned even further forward, sitting on the edge of his chair like he wanted to be in Peter's space. "You were supposed to stay out of hospitals, but no, you had to get within blast radius. Of course you did."

"That's our deal?" Peter hid a smile. Circumstances aside, there was a certain novelty to being scolded for reckless behavior by Neal Caffrey.

"He never used to be this risk averse," said the short guy, Moz. "I can never decide if it's an improvement, but it's certainly made my life—"

"Shut up, Moz," said Caffrey, at the exact time that Peter said, "Do you mind?"

They shared a surprised smile.

"See?" said Neal, and Peter didn't know what he was supposed to be seeing, but he was starting to like Neal again. He'd liked him for most of the time he was chasing him—had enjoyed his smarts and his elaborate twisty plans—but after two and a half years of missing El and living out of suitcases, Peter had got disenchanted with the whole thing and Neal in particular. God, it had been a relief to finally catch him! He should've known it wouldn't end there.

"The point is, you'll be okay," Neal continued, which was strangely reassuring. "They just have to keep you here twenty-four hours to let your body recover before they can send you back."

"Back where?" asked Peter.

Neal tilted his head, watching him carefully. "Two thousand and nine."

Peter slumped a little. Neal wasn't kidding. "What makes everyone so sure it's not amnesia? Maybe I just—"

"Do you have a knife scar on your left collarbone?" interrupted Neal.

Peter pulled at the neck of his hospital gown and checked. "No."

"Tattoo on your right hip?"

Peter started to look, then, "You're saying I have a _tattoo_?" El had a tattoo on her shoulder blade, from back before they'd met. Peter had never so much as considered following her example, never seen the point. Neal had to be making this up. Peter needed to talk to someone he could trust. "Where's my wife?"

"Downstairs with the other Peter," said Moz.

Neal shot him a glare.

The other, supposedly future him. That raised a far more worrying question. "The other me is here, in this building? What happens if I meet him?"

Moz looked around. "No one knows."

Peter looked from him to Neal. "Is this future fixed?"

"No one knows that either," said Neal soberly.

"Why not?" Peter stood up and tried to pace, but the IV line was a short tether. He put his hands on his hips instead. "We invented time travel, and—"

Moz held up one finger. "Actually the Australians invented it."

"Why are you here?" asked Peter, exasperated.

"El insisted," said Neal.

"You—the other you—agreed," added Moz, nodding.

Peter clasped his hands behind his head. "Some version of me, Peter Burke, knew that you, Neal Caffrey, were going to break into a restricted ward with this guy—and I was okay with that?"

"We had a deal," said Neal flatly. "You broke it. Deal's off."

"Fine," said Peter. He'd sort that out later. First he needed some answers. "So we have time travel, but we—"

"This is so weird," said Moz, sotto voce, to Neal. "You have no idea how much someone's changed until you meet their former self."

Peter gave up and came back to stand by the bed. "How have I changed?"

"For the better," said Moz positively, but Peter wasn't sure he wanted to take the guy's word on—anything much.

Neal stuck his hands in his pockets. "I'm not supposed to say."

"Because—" Peter prompted him.

The corner of Neal's mouth curved up. "You seemed to think it would give you an aneurysm."

"Neal." Peter caught Caffrey's gaze and held it, demanding an answer.

Neal didn't flinch or look away, and he wasn't the least bit cowed. Peter had no illusions that he could coerce information out of the guy. But Neal spoke up, all the same. "That tattoo you don't have."

Peter raised his eyebrows and waited.

Neal tugged at the waistband of his own pants, pulling it down just enough to reveal a small, elegant ampersand on his right hip. "El has one too."

"What, we've formed some kind of secret society?" Peter raised his eyebrows and pointed at Moz. "What about him—does he have one?"

Moz made a spluttering sound, but Peter's attention was focused on Neal.

"Just you, me and Elizabeth," said Neal, eyes steady like he was telling the truth or spinning a first class con.

Something niggled at the edge of Peter's memory. "You called her 'sweetheart'."

Neal stood up so they were facing each other. "Close your eyes."

Peter's mouth went dry. He tried surreptitiously to straighten his gown so it gave him more coverage. "Why?"

"Just do it," said Neal, and since when had Neal Caffrey spoken to an FBI agent with that much authority? But it worked. Peter closed his eyes, and the air moved, making his gown brush his thighs, and then there was warm breath on his mouth, and the softest press of lips against his—brief, maybe imagined—and Peter's heart started banging against his ribs like it wanted to get out. He opened his eyes, and Neal was pulling away, expression serious, but no guilt or glint of mischief or any other comprehensible emotion on his face. Which meant—

Which meant that in the future, Neal made a habit of kissing him. And El knew, she was in on it. They'd all got matching tattoos, for Christ's sake.

"I think I need to lie down," said Peter. He climbed back onto the bed and pulled the sheet and blanket over his knees, and desperately ignored the fact that he was half turned on. He wasn't attracted to Neal Caffrey.

Not yet.

He poured himself a cup of water and gulped it down, put the empty cup back on the cabinet. "So there's time travel," he said, changing the subject, "and no one really knows how it works, but it's already been put on the shelf. Why? Why aren't we figuring out the implications, studying it, investigating potential—"

Neal stepped back and gestured to Moz to explain, which he did. "The government, as a puppet of the military-industrial complex, would have us believe that trans-chron is physically and psychologically dangerous, but they're hiding the real truth. I mean, sure, there've been documented instances of death, coma, psychotic breaks and what have you, but that's true of a lot of emerging technology—it doesn't usually deter the men behind the scenes from developing it for their own ends."

Peter rolled his eyes and looked at Neal, who shrugged.

"No, the real problem with trans-chron in all the _classified_ cases—those are the ones that really matter—is that every TCT guinea pig has experienced a massive shift in priorities. They get too much historical perspective and become unreliable servants of the system. That's right, trans-chron breeds anti-establishment terrorists." Moz waved his parabolic mike, obviously warming to his topic. Peter had no idea how seriously to take him. "According to the reports, TCTs start to see themselves as outside of society and the law."

"That sounds familiar," said Peter drily, choosing not to react to Moz's casual admission of reading highly classified files.

"That's what I'm saying, man. Experiencing the future—or the past—firsthand could lead to an enviro-political movement that would actually achieve something, and that's the last thing the oil barons want. You thought the peace movement in the sixties was a force for change, but this would be like a global hurricane compared to that, and—"

Neal held up his hands. "Okay, we get the picture."

"He's paranoid," said Peter.

Neal nodded. "He's also right, more or less, as far as we can tell."

"Okay." Peter didn't want to argue about it. None of that felt like his problem except for the 'death, coma or psychotic break' part. If there was political corruption in play, that was for the Peter Burke that belonged in this time to solve. "The other me. Does he—did I know this happened before it—happened?"

Neal had settled back down in his chair. "No."

"It's possible they found some way to erase the event from your memory," said Moz.

Peter nodded. "Or I'm on a different timeline."

"Or that." Moz scratched his head. "I don't know how you could test for that."

Peter wasn't sure how he felt about potentially not ending up in this future. He didn't know anything about what was going on outside the hospital—and from the sound of it, that was for the best—but inside this hospital. Neal. El. Diana. Even Moz.

"It depends whether the difference is a butterfly flapping its wings or a giant comet about to crash into the Yucatán Peninsula," said Moz. "Or maybe somehow everything cancels out. The point is, we don't know."

"A different future isn't necessarily a worse one," said Neal, but he didn't meet Peter's eye.

Peter studied him. If things went differently than they had and their lives didn't converge after all, he wanted to be sure to recognize this Neal if he saw him again. Somewhere between him breaking in here in that ridiculous lab coat and now, Peter had started to think of him as an ally.

And maybe the whole thing was a con. Maybe the Men in Black and the doctor and the hospital were in on it, but Peter couldn't see what any of them hoped to gain from him, and there was El. El had definitely been at his bedside; she'd treated Neal like a partner, turning to him naturally, and Peter was convinced she hadn't been acting under duress. She was the only person he could be sure of, however much he wanted to trust Neal and Moz. She was the key.

Whatever past they sent him back to, he'd be okay so long as El was there.

"We should get going, man," Moz told Neal. He pointed at the nearly empty fluid bag on Peter's IV stand. "They'll be back any minute now to change that."

"Okay." Neal looked reluctant, but he stood up. "You'll be okay," he told Peter, "I promise. Is there anything you need?"

_Tell El I love her,_ thought Peter, but somehow he couldn't say that to Neal, who might expect the same kind of declaration himself. "I'll be fine."

"Okay, well—" Neal hovered, moving a little closer. "—I'll be seeing you."

Peter breathed a laugh. "I guess you will. Goodbye, Neal."

It was harder to say than it should have been. Peter adjusted the blankets and then looked up again, feeling self-conscious.

"_Hasta la vista_," said Neal softly, with the ghost of a smile, and a few seconds later the door snicked shut and they were gone.

 

**3.**

After the twenty-four hour recovery period, the government didn't send Peter back home right away. The two agents—who introduced themselves as Snowden and Fletcher—gave him his clothes and started feeding him properly, and then interrogated him for two days solid, apparently determined to bludgeon him with questions until he admitted he was part of some kind of plot to bring down the US government.

Peter kept his cool and answered their questions, over and over—no, he hadn't been aware of the presence of a TCT device before the explosion; no, he'd never heard of trans-chron before; yes, he'd been on the trail of a white collar criminal known as the Dutchman; no, as far as he knew, the Dutchman wasn't connected to any Middle Eastern or Soviet organizations; and on and on.

"How's Mackiewicz?" he asked at one point, and the two agents consulted with each other in the corner, and then unleashed a new barrage of questions: what was his connection with Mackiewicz? Did he know anything about Mackiewicz's background? Had he noticed anything suspicious in Mackiewicz's behavior, phone log, associates, friends?

When the sun came up on the second or third day, there was a knock at the door and Diana entered the room.

"You're a sight for sore eyes," said Peter.

She gave him a warm smile but only addressed Fletcher. "The order's come through. He's scheduled to be sent through by noon at the latest. There's a tech standing by."

She gave Fletcher an envelope, sent another reassuring look in Peter's direction and left. Peter guessed that any interaction at this stage would only prolong the interrogation.

Fletcher leafed through the contents of the envelope and handed it to Snowden. "It's in the bag. Are you done?"

Snowden dropped the envelope on the table, scratched his head sending a drift of dandruff onto his suit jacket, and nodded. "Done."

Half an hour later, they took him through two security doors labeled _Authorized Personnel Only_ and into a room with a device that looked like an x-ray machine.

"Stand in the blue square." Fletcher pointed to the taped area on the floor.

Snowden shook Peter's hand. "Good luck, Agent Burke."

Peter got a chill down his spine, and thirty seconds later, he was in a cloud of smoke, choking and dizzy, and someone was saying, "What happened?"

"Is everyone okay in there?" yelled a voice. Sounded like Clinton Jones.

A weight landed against Peter's leg, and he looked down but all he could see was a hand. He grabbed the wrist and dragged whoever was attached to it—felt like a dead weight—toward the voices. When he could breath enough to speak, he yelled, "Man down! Man down!"

Then he was coughing so hard he nearly fell against the door.

He got Mackiewicz out, though. "Someone call an ambulance!"

McCann pushed him aside and started CPR.

"Ambulance is on its way," said Jones. "Agent Burke, how did you know it was going to do that?"

He was talking about the explosion. Peter thought back, tried to put himself in the moment. "Three-two-four," he said. "Look at your phones—what's it spell?"

Jones pulled out his phone. "Oh. FBI."

"Yeah," said Peter. "FBI. Guess he knew we were coming."

A minute later, Diana came in, looking deadly serious. Peter stopped yelling at his team and turned to her. "What?"

She met his gaze. "Neal Caffrey escaped."

 

 

 

**Part 2**

**4\. **

It was a reality check to see Neal in the prison security footage, with his ever-decreasing beard. He looked young, fragile. Peter's protective instincts rose to the surface, but he pressed his lips together and reminded himself this was a case like any other. He couldn't be sure that this Neal Caffrey would ever turn into the Neal he'd met in 2014. All he could do was find him and behave naturally: if things evolved from there, then so be it, but Peter couldn't count on that—and he needed to talk to El.

At Kate's apartment, he told his team and the Marshals to hold their positions outside and went in alone. Neal was sitting on the floor, holding an empty wine bottle, and Peter had a moment of panic as he walked across the empty room. He didn't know who he was supposed to be for this guy: a stranger, the long arm of the law, his friend?

He did the best he could:

"It's been a while." Which felt like a lie, though it wasn't.

"Kate says adios to you in prison and gets busy with her disappearing act." Which might perhaps have come out more kindly if Peter hadn't just met a future Neal who'd obviously moved on too.

"They're going to give you another four years for this, you know." Which, from Neal's apathetic reaction, was actually harder for Peter to say than it was for Neal to hear.

And then, as if their conversation were choreographed, Neal stood up and plucked a shiny red strand from Peter's jacket, and bargained himself a meeting, and Peter was so relieved it wouldn't end here, he almost forgot to say yes.

That evening he sat down on the couch with El and took her hands. "There's something I need to tell you."

She listened to his story with grave attention, asking occasional questions, but mostly letting him talk.

"—and are you just humoring me, or do you actually believe what I'm saying?" Peter finished.

"Well, you don't seem delusional," she said. "And that tattoo doesn't sound like something you'd make up, so I'm going with the most likely scenario, which is that my husband is telling me the truth."

Peter squeezed her hands. "But it's crazy, right? I mean, Neal Caffrey?" He shook his head, inviting her to make a joke of it. "And the idea of the three of us, together. I don't know how we'd even—I mean, do you think we could—?"

"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "But from what you've said, if it happened, it was because we all wanted it to, so—it seems silly to rule it out, you know?"

Peter pulled her against him and hugged her. "You are an amazing woman."

"I know," she said, resting her hand on his chest. There was a smile in her voice. "So, will I like Neal?"

"Oh, everyone likes Neal," said Peter, his cheek pressed to the top of her head. "Liking isn't an issue. It's whether you can trust him." He shifted so he could see her face. "You hold all the cards on this one, El. Anytime you want me to back off, you just have to say. You want us to move to another continent, I'll start packing up the house. I can't do any of this without you."

She touched his face and kissed him. "Why would I want us to move to another continent to get away from our future boyfriend? Honey, I can see it in your face—you're already more than half in love with him."

Peter's face got hot, but he couldn't wholly deny it. He clarified, though. "It's not who he is now—it's who he's going to be. Maybe. If things work out."

"Well, I guess there's nothing we can do but wait and see," said El, and kissed him again.

 

**5\. **

Three long months later, Neal was released into Peter's supervision. He wasn't the Neal from the future—the one Peter had been daydreaming about, despite himself; the one who'd kissed him—but the seeds were there. So seeing him step through the prison door in his black overcoat and ankle bracelet, blinking in the sunlight like he was emerging from underground, made Peter's chest ache.

He did his damnedest to be patient and professional, and not to let slip that he cared more than he should, but within twenty-four hours, Neal was living on easy street at the expense of a rich widow he'd only just met, and surely it wasn't supposed to go like that! He was going to land himself back in prison! Peter had to stop him, but there was nothing he could do except work with him and try to be a good influence.

It was exhausting, trying to control the uncontrollable—and that included Neal, as well as Peter's own feelings—but it all fell into place when they were working together. Then, Peter got a real sense of the Neal he'd met in the future, a sweet taste of hope.

The second morning after Neal's release, Peter came downstairs to find Neal on the couch with El. His heart almost stopped beating. Surely it wasn't supposed to go like this, either—this headlong rush into partnership and the three of them. Wasn't that something that should take years, trust built on a careful foundation, accumulated moment by moment?

Had Peter done something to make Neal aware of the possibilities between them, and if he had, had it been a self-fulfilling prophesy or would their future fall apart because none of it was happening in a logical, orderly fashion?

"Honey, we're just chatting," said El, her eyes and hands calming him.

He took a deep breath and made himself view them dispassionately, and okay, he could see that. Neal and El meeting for the first time, side by side on the couch. Friendly, interested in each other, nothing more.

And Neal was Neal—of course he'd do outrageous things, take as much rope as they gave him. Of course he'd want to get to know Peter's wife. He'd never been able to keep his distance, even when he was on the run. Maybe he was motivated as much by information-gathering as by genuine interest, but if future history held true, Peter and El could change that.

"I know who the Dutchman is," said Neal.

Peter stopped his empty threat of a phone call to the Marshals and looked at him. "Enlighten me."

"Curtis Hagen."

Hagen. Peter knew that name. How did he know that name?

 

**6.**

Diana knocked on his office door. "Hey, boss. Got a minute?"

"What is it?" Peter looked up from the report he was writing.

She took a chair and clasped her hands together. Peter didn't think he'd ever seen her uncomfortable before. "I'm requesting a transfer to DC," she said. "Not that I'm not happy here. It's for personal reasons."

"I'll be sorry to lose you," said Peter sincerely. Then the full significance of her decision registered. Diana was leaving. In the future, she'd been right here, still working with him. If she left, that proved he was on a different timeline with a different future; nothing was certain.

Which was how it had always been. It was how most people lived their lives! But all the same, it gave Peter a sickening sense of uncertainty and loss. Because somehow, over the last three months, he'd started counting on that future, and relying on the natural turn of events to make it happen. He wasn't Neal's type, had never been Neal's type, and whatever had happened to bring them together in the future he'd seen, he couldn't count on that happening now.

But none of it was Diana's fault. Peter nodded reluctantly. "I'll call DC and arrange it."

"Thanks, boss." She got up to leave, then hesitated in the doorway. "You'll be fine."

"I know." Peter gave her a smile, and waited for her to leave before he bent his head over his desk and clenched his jaw. There was no way to hold the present together. He had to accept that. He called Elizabeth and told her what had happened.

"Oh honey," she said. "It will all turn out okay. Trust me."

"I do," he said, but he couldn't help thinking that 'okay' might mean Peter getting over his complicated feelings for Neal, putting the future behind him and working to keep life satisfying and good with only El at his side.

Only El. He mentally kicked himself. El was more than anyone could hope for. He was damned lucky, and he'd do well to remember that.

When, later that day, Neal said, "Remember how you told me not to look for Kate?" Peter went through the whole mental self-kicking process again. Obviously this Neal was hung up on Kate. She was The One.

Grace and gratitude, Peter told himself. Be grateful for what you have here, in the real world. And he was. As Neal himself had said, a different future wasn't necessarily a worse one.

 

**7.**

Peter's heart was in his throat as SWAT busted down the door of Hagen's warehouse. Hagen's men had had no qualms about murdering the book dealer, and he'd been on their side—was there any chance Neal was still alive?

Still, even his fears couldn't wholly undercut the satisfaction of taking down Hagen and his thugs. "This is what the law calls an exigent circumstance," announced Peter, leading the way through the warehouse full of printing presses and boxes of ink. "Any of you Harvard grads know what that is?"

In the back, there was an enclosed glass office, filled with smoke. Neal opened the door, coughing, and waved him over. Relief made Peter weak. He stayed long enough to ensure the arrests were sound, then went to see him.

Neal was puffing on a contraband cigar, but that wasn't the source of the dense smoke, which was rapidly thinning. That seemed to have come from nowhere.

Peter stopped in the doorway. "You know, you're really bad at this escape thing."

"What can I say?" Neal looked tired and pale, but extremely pleased with himself and, more importantly, unharmed. There was a gleam in his eye that made Peter aware of his own body and how close they were standing.

He told himself to relax, he was just imagining it.

Neal jerked his head toward the safe standing open in the corner—it was a good thing he'd been able to crack it; Mackiewicz had only been back at work for a couple of weeks and was still on desk duty—and Peter tore his gaze from Neal and looked into the safe. "Is that the original Victory bond?"

"Why yes, yes it is," said Neal, grinning.

On the shelf below the bond was a sleek silver oblong with two blinking red lights. It was the size of a small briefcase and stamped 'TCT'. The Dutchman's time machine. Peter approached it with caution, but it must have been on standby. Nothing happened. He picked it up, the case hot to the touch and whirring softly, and took it out into the warehouse. "Diana, crate this up and send it to Darryl Fletcher at the Pentagon. Special courier."

"What is it?" Diana took the device off him and examined it.

"That's classified," said Peter. "Be very careful with it. Don't handle it more than you need to."

He turned back to Neal, who was on the edge of Hagen's fancy antique desk, still smoking his cigar. Peter gave up trying to hide his pleasure at the sight. He sat next to Neal, still riding the adrenaline high and reveling in the triumph of a bust gone right.

"You know, this makes me three and oh."

Neal rolled his eyes. "Maybe I'm not trying hard enough."

Peter laughed. This timeline might not turn out perfectly, but it definitely had its moments. So long as Neal managed to keep his skin in one piece, Peter thought he could live with it.

"You know," Neal added casually, "I'm thinking about getting a tattoo." He handed Peter a folded slip of paper.

"A tattoo." Peter blinked. "You." He unfolded the paper and stared down at the simple, elegant curves of an ampersand. "Oh."

Neal shifted on the desk so his thigh was pressed against Peter's. "What do you think?"

_Yes,_ thought Peter. _God, yes._ He took a deep breath. "I think maybe we should ask El what she thinks."

Neal nodded equably. "You want some help decorating the patio for her, this afternoon?"

"Yeah." Peter wanted to keep this moment. He wanted to capture it and fold it up, and carry it in his wallet forever. He settled for pocketing the slip of paper. "Do you want to join us tonight?"

Neal stopped swinging his legs. "Are you sure Elizabeth would be okay with that?"

Peter dug his phone out of his pocket and gave it to Neal. "Ask her."

Neal leaned in even closer and murmured, "Peter, you're not as different as I thought." He pressed speed dial #1 without Peter having to tell him, and when El answered, "Hi, honey," he said, "Hi, Elizabeth. It's Neal. Yeah, yeah, we got him." He laughed. "We're both fine. Peter said I should ask you—can I be part of your anniversary surprise?"

Peter held his breath. And down the line, El's faint, warm "I think I'd like that, actually" was the sound of the last pin dropping perfectly into place.

 

END


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